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Moneta Eagles - Australian Heritage Series

Moneta Eagles (1924-2003), after winning a number of prizes and commissions in the concert music world (including an important prize for her Sonatina for piano) moved towards composing music for film. Most of her purely concert music is from her earlier years and to a certain extent is more an indicator of what might have been rather than a journey approaching fulfillment of her potential. But, even given such a qualification, the writing inevitably demonstrates the work of someone who understands what she is doing and how she is shaping the sounds. Eagles’ music is never short of ideas and contains both elegance and structure. She was at first a concert pianist and performed her own as well as standard concert works for piano and orchestra, with Eugene Goossens sometimes conducting at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music. She also studied with Alex Burnard at the same institution, and later with Matyas Seiber in England. Now a forgotten figure, the Heritage Series is proud to revive some of her compositions.